A Dancing Girl
by Strange Principles
Summary: The stars wheel, and the girl dances. Recount Lenne's last moments and coming soons Yuna's POV. Tragic, please read, even if you're not an FFX2 fan, it doesn't NEED to make sense. My best yet.


-1

**--- The Dancing Girl**

The girl with hair that flowed in a river about her back, the girl who summoned the stars to her very feet, brushed her hair behind her ears and ran like the wind to stand upon the glittering metropolis: Zanarkand. Her city. Their city. A city falling about their feet. A city that had caused too many tears to fall, because of its heart-breaking fate…

The stars played out ill-fate that night, and their slow lament could be heard, and Lenne could feel it, hear it, with her every cell. She closed her eyes, knowing that soon, Zanarkand might very soon be just a tale, a tale that maybe, someone would recount with just a little regret.

Just a little would be enough.

She knew now, it was inevitable, the destruction of the city she had treasured. The destruction of herself; but the things were incomparable. When she had taken up life as a Summoner, she knew her destiny was to protect the people. She was matched in her gift to summon as much as she was in her gift to sing. She had wondered, before, whether the people of Bevelle might hesitate to kill such a renowned songstress but looking down up into the skies, and down into the swarming streets of Zanarkand, she knew that there was nothing special about her.

The soldiers were swarming in and there she was, above the city, almost suspended above the stars on one of the largest towers in Zanarkand. The songstress staff was in her hand, and closing her eyes, tilting her head back, Lenne began the dance that would bring people to their deaths.

Twirling and gliding in the windless night she sang the soft lullaby that had echoed within her for so long, fighting to get out. The people below stopped; they stared. Lenne sang with a longing that was true to her own thoughts. But the thing was, the song stopped. The song stopped just as she knew what was about to happen… and she knew the climax, she just… lost it.

"_Save your tears, 'cause I'll come back,"_

_I could hear that you whispered as you walked through that door,_

_But still I swore to hide the pain, when I turn back the pages…_

_Shouting might have been the answer;_

_What if I'd cried my eyes out and begged you not to depart…"_

The dance ended.

The song stopped.

And Lenne felt a heart wrenching sadness as something shattered inside her. This was her song, she knew it; but it had no end. No end, to tell her love. No way of saying what she felt. Because it was true, all of it. The words told a story. Her story. How he had left her to fight a battle that she was facing; alone.

The fires swept the city, and the machina rampaged, matching her aeon's in strength - pulling them to the floor and consuming them in their fiery wake. All around, people died. So many from Zanarkand, and what did they die for? The armies of Bevelle marched on, heedless to the few they had lost. Zanarkand's armies had but dented the huge seething mass that was Bevelle. Dying soldiers would look up, from both sides, and amongst the starry treasures that were laid bare against the velvet night, the real jewel lay; the songstress who sent them on their way to the Farplane, while trying her best to overcome the swelling mass of Bevelle. They could think of no gift more precious to lay eyes on in their last moments.

The tears ran thick and fast.

Prisoners were taken; death was imminent.

XXXXX

And then Lenne, not quite knowing how or why, began to run. She didn't know why; she couldn't tell. The liberty of dancing, of summoning, of singing; it had been stripped away in the final moments before Zanarkand breathed its last and became the relic that lay, silently watching Gagazet in it's refuge.

It had been too long without someone to be with her, to comfort her. The people of Zanarkand were dead. They had fought bravely, but died in vain. Their deaths were worth nothing. Just the sight of a dancing girl…

She ran, and ran, until it was hard to breathe and she was dizzy and tired, but she couldn't stop; the soldiers, they were after her. And they… they would kill. But she had to get to the centre. She had to tell him… she had to tell him…

Tell him what? She loved him. She loved him more than anything else in the world. She loved him more than Zanarkand itself. She wanted him to stop -- stop wreaking revenge on a city that believed it fought for the right thing. Stop him blaming himself, rather than Spira's own foolishness and greed.

And there it was, the centre. The eerie form of a humongous machina, menacing and brutal, loomed down upon her but she couldn't, wouldn't care. He was there. And as she ran, she stopped, arms spread wide, and yelled the only words she could think of.

"Stop! That's enough!"

But they weren't the right ones.

It seemed like an age that their eyes fixed on each other, regretful, and full of a strange kind of unhealed love. And so suddenly -- too soon, the contact was cut and Lenne turned around to see the guns of fifty men pointing at her, and she couldn't help her heart sinking.

Moments later, she couldn't quite tell when or how, she was with _him_, in an embrace; and after a moment, their eyes locked again. And she was so sad, because she knew the words of the song; her song. No, _their_ song. And there was no time to tell it this time.

He opened his mouth as if to say something, but she could read it all in his eyes.

_I love you._

And so she smiled, a smile that carried all the thoughts and memories he had given her. It was a smile that said: "I love you… and I'm glad it's been ended… with you."

The guns were lowered, and one of the last things Lenne heard was the firing of a hundred angry bullets. There wasn't time for pain. No time for words. No time for tears. Just time to realise that she'd been torn away from Shuyin's grip, see the memories flash past; see the look of concern on his face and feel the hot and useless tears.

And _remember…_

_**A/N: The next chapter will be from Yuna's point of view. I hope you liked it, so please review. It's one of my first serious ones, and I'd just like to add a little (yay) Final Fantasy is the best RPG ever!**_

_**Disclaimer: I do not own the lyrics of 1000 Words, Lenne, Shuyin, Zanarkand, Spira, or any of the words that were created by Square Enix. They belong to Square Enix and I'm very grateful they made this so I could even write about them!**_


End file.
